Lemon Cheesecake
by MyNameIsM
Summary: L raised a finger to his lips thoughtfully. "Watari, I think I may die today."


_I don't even know where this came from, or what it is. I was out shopping and I saw various lemon-related objects and my mind came up with this. I'd always wondered about L's origins; I imagine at least one parent must be a cake enthusiast. Sorry for the really cheesy ending, I don't know what came over me. _

Lemon Cheesecake 

"Watari?"

The elderly gentleman glanced down at the young boy beside him – he was so small, his little body consumed by his thick winter-jumper and, although they held hands, he had to run to keep up with the elder man's step. "What is it, L?"

"Where are my parents?"

Watari sighed heavily. "I can't tell you."

The small boy stopped, and pulled on his hand so that he stopped too. His small pale face twisted into a pout of confusion. "Why not?" He looked up at the older man, his large black eyes intent and unwavering.

Watari hesitated, mulling over the boy's difficult question in his mind. Eventually, he said: "It's a secret, your parents want to keep you guessing."

"But I want to know." It was a firm and wilful declaration.

Watari sighed, and he knelt down to get to the boy's level. The snow melted into his smart suit and made his old knees ache, but this was necessary. L often had trouble processing emotion , and being on his level helped him understand it all. The boy had his problems, but there was real potential there – he was a brilliant child. "Well, I'll tell you what, I'll tell you when you're older. When you feel ready. I think you're a little too young yet."

Those great black eyes clouded over with juvenile thought for a moment. "I'll come when I'm dying. I'll be ready then."

Watari recoiled slightly. "But L, that's a long way away, I probably won't be around by then."

The child shook his head. "No. It's ok. I'll come see you then."

Watari smiled, and ruffled the boy's explosion of thick black hair.

Strange boy. Undeniably brilliant, but strange boy.

…

"Would you like some more cheesecake?"

"No thank you."

"Well, ok. You be careful now. Stay in touch."

He had always wondered why a stray tear had run down her cheek as he left.

…

That strange boy had indeed, as he had predicted, become brilliant. Three thousand, five hundred difficult cases under his belt and Watari had never been happier with his protégée – everything had turned out exactly as planned; no, in fact things had turned out even better. The experiment had been beyond successful and the whole world reaped the benefits of his vision. He had reached the peak of his life warm with the knowledge that L, the boy he had raised from infant-hood, stood as the greatest detective in the world.

Of course, things were moving a little slow in the Kira case, but Watari's confidence was unshakable – L would solve it, as he always would, and they would move on. He'd finally pick a successor, and Watari would see to it that the boy chosen was properly tested and prepared for the task of becoming L when the time came.

Watari appreciated that this case was going to be a while in the making though; this wasn't cut black and white with facts. With all this supernatural business going on, things became unpredictable.

But L would solve it. This was a fact to the old man.

Feeling rather pleased with himself, Watari poured himself a nice cup of tea.

There was a soft '_woosh_' as the door to the office opened. The elderly man swivelled in his chair. L stood in the doorway; his hands were thrust deep into his pockets and his jet hair hid his pale face completely. The boy was wet through, all of his clothes sticking closely to his abnormally skinny body – the jutting bones of his ribs were accentuated by the almost see-through white shirt which clung to them. He shivered slightly.

"Ryuzaki? What is it?"

L raised a finger to his lips thoughtfully. "Watari, I think I may die today."

The words hung oddly in the air for a while, and the two men simply stared at each other for a while. But, as usual, L out-stared the man who'd raised him – how could he not, the boy never blinked! "What do you mean Ryuzaki?"

L shrugged his slouched shoulders and rubbed his finger about his lips a few times, slowly and thoughtfully. "I feel peaceful. The fight is almost over. I am going to die." He walked over to the spare seat, back bent in that familiar fashion, his bare feet squelching on the bare metal flooring. He sat hunched over and watched Watari, waiting for a reaction.

"You can't possibly know that!" The old man cried. There was an awful sense of anxiety growing in his stomach; L was an intelligent man, there was no doubting that, but most of his deductions came from intuition alone. And L's intuition was very rarely wrong; and the young man was adamant.

"I can feel it. But enough on that. You owe me a story."

Watari sighed. It was true. He hesitated a while, not daring to meet L's intense gaze, although he could _feel _those large eyes staring at him. He could feel the words forming in him, he could feel them rising in his throat like vomit. And when the words finally came, like vomit, they came in an explosion.

"I don't know much about your father. He was a strange man, a recluse and a scholar; I don't know whether to call him brilliant or insane. He started a million little projects but never finished any of them. He was sporadic, I read some of his manuscripts, they didn't make sense really – the things he came up with could of changed the world, but he couldn't get them out of his head and onto the page. His mind was a constantly running motor, going at a million miles an hour. I think marrying your mother was the only project he managed to complete before getting distracted. In the end he collapsed under the weight of his own mind. Burnt the house to the ground."

Watari paused. L stared at him blankly, completely stoic. One finger absently stroked his lip, other than that he was motionless.

"Your mother I know a lot more about; she was my niece. Natasha."

L's eyes sparkled momentarily and that absent-minded finger stopped.

"She was a lovely girl, a lovely girl. She really didn't deserve what she got. Her parents died young and she came to live with me. I tried to raise her the best I could, but there was no teaching that girl. She was too wilful, too headstrong. She ran away to marry your father. She sent me a few letters, a few of his manuscripts and was back on my doorstep within a year, penniless and pregnant."

Watari sipped his tea, which was now lukewarm. He hated this story; but what was more, he hated having to relive it. He could see her now, clear as day, in his mind's eye – badly died hair, intense black eyes, thin and pale and always wearing old, threadbare jumpers.

"I looked after her through out. She was quite a mess after all that happened. She gave birth to you, and named you after your father – well, that's what she said anyway, she gave you his initial for a birth name because she didn't want you ending up like him. She was so scared, and she said you looked so much like him – she was a fanciful girl, and she thought that sort of thing had bearing over personality..."

Watari paused again. He drained the remainder of his, now cold, tea. L Lawliet, tragic son of a tragic mother, stared steadily back at him. The elderly man knew that he knew the rest of the story for himself, but he felt like he needed to explain it too him. That poor boy still found it hard to understand emotions.

"She was so scared. She tried to look after you but she just couldn't cope; so, I took you on at Whammy's house, and she disappeared for a while, to 'find herself'. But she came back in the end, knocking on the door in the middle of the night." He paused; he could remember that night so clearly – it had been like a tempest outside, and there she stood, drenched to the bone, straggly hair plastered to her wet and ravaged face, and her eyes, they'd been so tired and heavy and all-knowing that he'd nearly cried at the sight of them. "She watched you sleeping that night. Then she begged me for a job, so I gave her one; she was family after all."

That was the end of the story, and he was sure L could work out the rest.

The young man got to his feet. "Thank you Watari. Now, please could you get in touch with the police. I have a new method for testing the Death Note that I'd like to try."

"Of course Ryuzaki."

…

"Would you like another piece of cheesecake?"

The lady was poised, ready to cut another serving for him. L was not sure why this lady liked him more than the other grown-ups – they avoided talking to him if they could, though he didn't know why. This lady, however, was always giving him lemon cheesecake, or lemon drizzle cake, or lemon Swiss roll, and he liked her, even if she had crazy skunk hair.

The woman grinned down at him. Her white blond hair was pulled back in a messy bun, accentuating her black roots and the patches of black that she had missed. Her eyes were small, and black, like coal. And her face was blanched and very thin. The pastel pink jumper she wore was far too big for her and made her look shapeless. 

She knelt down on his level, her eyes filled with a fondness that he couldn't quite understand. Her name-tag said she was called Natasha – she was the only grown up he'd seen about with a name-tag on; but she was the only person he'd ever seen on the front desk. Perhaps she didn't sleep much, like him?

"No thank you." He mumbled it to his thick winter jumper.

She smiled sadly. "Ok then champ." She ruffled his hair. She wanted to hug him, but she knew she couldn't. She hadn't held him since he was a baby, and she never would again. She loved him dearly, and cursed the day she ran away. He was her son, and she was his mother But he didn't know that. Nor would he ever, but that was for the best.

There was a small cough from around the front desk. Watari was waiting.

"Ah, here's Watari. It's time to go." She tried to smile brightly, but it felt like more of a grimace. "Here, let me help you get your mittens on." She helped ease those tiny white hands into the thick woollen mittens. God, he looked so much like his father.

When she was done, she smiled down at the boy. He smiled awkwardly back at her. "Well ok, I guess you gotta go. Be careful. Stay in touch, and don't you go forgetting about me." She tapped him lightly on the nose.

"I won't forget." I promised, still mumbling into his jumper.

A small tear escaped when he was led away. A tear he saw but would never understand.

Natasha Lawliet watched her five year old son leave that winter morning. He would forget her, but she could never forget him. She would hold him dear in her heart until her last breath, treasure his baby face in her memories with fondness, imagine the man that he would become, and she would be proud without never knowing.

She would never forget him, she would never know him. But he was her son, and she would always love him, no matter what became of him.


End file.
